The ONE thing your team needs to improve Productivity — Fighting against the No Corridor
How you can navigate to YES and grow a team that can too
--
How many times have you been in a meeting and someone pipes up and says, ‘Oh…. No, we can’t do that’? When you hear this, you are dealing with someone in the No Corridor. The most important thing you can learn how to do is fight against the No Corridor. The No Corridor is the killer of enthusiasm, productivity and creative culture. Just putting a name to it is oftentimes enough to defeat it.
People stuck in the No Corridor are simply unaware of all the details, the subtleties of the process, or how to best articulate the constraints. They just know that what you’ve said doesn’t fit with their mental picture.
The best people and teams will fight their way out of the No Corridor. They find a way to get to ‘Yes, if’ or ‘Yes, however’, or ‘Yes, but’. It is difficult, but I’ll describe how to grow a team that fights to yes all the time.
Imagine this scenario
You have identified that you need some specialist support to finish a project.
You cannot finish the project without a coding specialist. Your team does not have this unique skill so you scour your teams network for the right person to help you. After a few days, excited about your team’s problem-solving skills and how close you are to finishing you find someone suitable from a consultancy, then speak to HR to find out how to engage them.
You’ve done all the work to get the right skills for your team and project to succeed, and as soon as you speak to HR they say “Oh no, we can’t do that — we don’t have a funding line”. You are now in the darkness of the No Corridor, and somehow — together — you have to find your way to a Yes…. If.
I am sure you have conversations like this before. The frustration you feel is palpable to those around you, but the person you are dealing with only has the process to follow. They aren’t really at fault. They don’t have all the information. They may not understand where there are real constraints and where there are perceived constraints. You can help, and you can grow others who can too.
